Bold action indeed. Consider the bold action of sticking your foot in your mouth: "The average foreign student scores higher on any test of English than any American does" you say.
This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. You're saying that a hypothetical person that we call average foreign student can get higher test scores on *any english test* than the *best* American student. In other words, the best American English speaker would score below average if tested with a pool of foreign students. That's utter silliness. I'm willing to believe that foreign students do very well in English tests.
A number of countries with many students studying abroad teach English from an early age (India, for example), and since these countries have effective education systems, they produce fluent English speakers. Also, people that can afford to go to school abroad tend to come from affluent families that place an emphasis on education, which skews their test scores higher. But what you're saying is just hyperbole for the sake of hyperbole. Be accurate! There are some incredibly proficient, fluent, and articulate speakers of American English that were raised in the states, and I think we can all agree that these people (even if they represent a minority of U.S. students) would perform above average when compared to the body of foreign students studying in America.
Nitpicking aside, I agree with the main thrust of your argument to some extent. I like the idea of kicking out management-speak-spewing overpaid jackass CEOs, and I think there are a few cases where outsourcing top management looks particularly attractive-- but suggesting American businesses as a whole should be taken out of the hands of Americans is a jilting proposition to me. There is something to be said for independence, after all. I don't think it's a fair trade to cripple America's sense of self rule in exchange for a few bucks and an averted corruption scandal or two.
We have so many words because we have so few characters and no system of tones for distinguishing homonyms. That, and the anglo-saxons, polar-bear-pirates that we are, get around to neighboring countries pretty often and pillage their words. It's a great language, but certain independently created systems of writing shouldn't be forced into compliance with our standards-- we don't use these characters because they're the absolute end all be all best, we use them because everybody knows them and they've worked pretty well so far. In other words, they're a standard too old to change abruptly. Anyway, I like em.
This efficiency business though, I'm not so sure about. We have to parse quite a bit more visual space to read the same amount of information-- that's not particularly efficient.
Anyway, memorizing the spellings for 60,000 not-so-phonetic words and memorizing 60,000+ kanji-- it's not so clear which is easier.
Even if it means destroying the environment by depleting finite natural "feature" reserves. Damn you, irresposible Americans! Your cowboy attitude is destroying the planet!
Of course, we Linux junkies don't want unnecessary features. We want a computer that does exactly what it was designed to do, without room for flexibility or customization!
C'mon, guys. There's a lot of room to criticize Microsoft, but do you really think shouting about the plethora of features they've added over the years is going to convince anybody? My god! Their software, it has so many... things! It's some kind of thing monster! Thing monster! Kill it!
To be fair, it's only the propaganda artist in the article that's really saying it, but still...
Why can't they both be happy? They can have a pony, and a house, and a kitchen, and they can ride the pony... If they wanted to, they could quit their jobs and become astronaut ballerina princesses, and fight crime, IN THE JUNGLE, as jungle crime fighters. Or Steve Jobs could go to the Yukon and have adventures there-- and Wozniak could be an segway riding anti-terrorist vigilante in the Middle East.
Laws, laws, laws. Let's not get too litigation happy. If everybody involved think it's ok (i.e. the copiers and the software foundation) then, with things like this, nobody's done anything wrong. Right? The idea of copyright law stabbing the copyright holder inadvertently by forcing him to adhere to the same crippling licenses that proprietary, corporate, software uses is a crazy idea every way you think about it. I guess it's a good thing that isn't what's happening.
Apple beat HP to this kind of thing by over a decade. They've been making PC/Boat anchors, PC/doorstops etc. for a looong time now. Granted, they got out of that business sometime around when OS X came out. Must not've been profitable anymore.
sur as a coledge studnet i frimly believe tht internet comunications cn only hlp in enceraging proper english...
And the fact that it took me a really long time to write that sentence only helps my case.
The most glaring examples of bad grammar come from people that would be illiterate whether or not they could be heard on the internet. Most of the article is just "blah blah blah, I'm old!"
These are the bastards that made me write essays with a pencil back in the day-- the kind of people that think typing is too impersonal (issuing a big "fuck you" from people with lifelong fine motor skill impairments, like myself). There are some bits I agree with, though. I don't like these bullshit buzzwords one bit. They're obfuscating the language, and they don't make any logical *sense* in most sentences. They're frivolous and have no literary merit. On the other hand, they allow me to tell the difference between a lunatic illiterate slob and an eloquent speaker.
OS X is very stable-- rock solid, in my experience. But Apple has not *always* made stable software. I am sitting right now in a computer lab full of OS 9 running green and white G3s. I can tell you with great certainty that classic Mac OS is *not* stable. These systems die constantly. Without warning, they will simply *halt*. Nothing to do but hard reset. Absolute freeze. This has characterized my experience with classic Mac OS. You'll just be chugging along, doing your thing, and then *WHAM*, everything dies, without warning-- without so much as a cough or sputter. Just absolute electronic oblivion.
We're not talking about particularly intensive applications either-- think elementry school educational software.
Hahaha! Porn pornity porn porn porn! The joke here is that the internet has porn on it! Haha! I made a funny. Excuse me a moment while I go change my pants.
Please, people!
At any rate, it's another one of those surveys that attempts to rigorously show what we all already know. People use the internet as a medium for social interaction. Whoopee.
I'm a little worried, though, that computer users answered "fun" because they had no idea what they were doing on the internet. That's probably unfounded, though. Most of them are probably members of the thronging myspace jackass horde.
I think when they say "simple" they mean simple like "Boy howdy! I may not know too much about math, but I can drive a truck real good!". That kind of thing. Less "the simple life", and more "the simpleton". "Maybe I laust my daug, but I steel haev jaebus!" Simple. Like they're not gonna trick you by being too smart or anything.
I agree with you about jackass sophisticates-- they can decieve some people, but generally you can look somebody in the eyes and tell pretty quickly if the wheels are spinning back there.
Science *always* attempts to explain or predict phenomenon that extend beyond the boundaries of that which is actually observed. Even if it's as simple as saying "if I pee on the snow and it melts today, then if I pee on the snow tomorrow, it will melt". I think you're making a bullshit arbitrary distinction. Science is inductive-- you're saying that, at some level of removal from the empirical results (defined by you, I guess), induction stops being "proven science" and starts being... "theory". How is that a useful distinction? You're using induction either way, but now that you've divided science into two categories, you no longer have a continuum that spans from reasonable, obvious, induction, to unreasonable, farfetched induction. Seems like an artificially simple way to look at a complex situation-- which, of course, is a favorite tactic of pseudo-science and quackery.
It has been said time and time again-- a theory is a falsifiable hypothesis supported by all accepted evidence. As the original guy scarcastically pointed out, saying "Theory of Jesus" is insulting both to scientists and to christians. Insulting to christians because they base their beliefs on faith, and theories are by necessity falsifiable-- and insulting to scientists, because they base their conclusions on evidence. Putting religious doctrine in a category with empirical observation does an injustice to everything science has accomplished and stands for.
When you use the word "theory" that loosely, the word loses all meaning.
"Theory of Jesus" might as well be "Theory of Bonk on the Noggin"
I got the full story on NPR-- and the scientist they interviewed brought that up. They *were* under the impression that the placenta formed an impenetrable barrier, and they *did* think that the immune system would attack any remaining fetal cells, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said today the pants office in the US has to keep his penis in a special harness because his member is so vast. "My johnson has to be kept in special trousers because normal garments can't deal with the numbers," he said at a Microsoft conference held in Lisbon.
Thank you, Mr. Gates!
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
·
· Score: 1
And yet it just doesn't work that that way in biology. Your simple analogy is stupid. Biology is still always complex. Cars are, in comparison, pretty simple-- and designed by humans, and designed specifically to be easily controlled by humans. Biology wasn't designed by humans, nor was it meant (whatever that means) to be controlled by humans.
Also, we know everything about how a car works (within reason. We know enough to build one, after all). We do not know everything about how humans work. The only way to build a new human is a risky hit-and-miss kind of affair that gets very messy and doesn't always work out for the involved parties.
I don't think I'm muddled on this one-- your attempt to muddy the waters with a crappy analogy hasn't swayed me. Simple statements about biological mechanisms are overwhelmingly inaccurate or misleading. Even a seemingly intuitive statement like "if I eat more, I will gain weight" is misleading, and frequently untrue.
Why do you think Pseudoscience is such a damned hit? It's easy an enjoyable to make incorrect generalizations about these overwhelmingly complicated systems.
Help me out here, Mr. AC-- what's so simple about Biology? Especially in this context!
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
·
· Score: 1
The statement: [something related to biology or the human body] is simple! Is always, always, always a lie. A big lie. A big fat stupid lie. A big fat stupid lie with diabetes and countless chins. Can we do away with this? Please? You'll notice that science type folks tend to phrase things very carefully. This isn't just their way of fancy talkin'. They're trying to communicate in some way the overwhelming complexity of the thing they're studying, and trying to emphasize how little is known.
The cause of human obesity is really very complex.
And anyway, this whole "evolution forced us to be efficient energy storage machines!" is a little ridiculous. It's highly speculative, and it doesn't give us any useful information on how to solve the problem. IT WAR TEH EVOLUSHUN! Why is the assumption that our ancestors were always hungry so prevalent. You know, our ancestors were real smarties, and there's a lot of food out there. Also, people have been smart enough to store food for thousands of years, which really takes the edge off the "I'll just store food in my body!" thing.
The decrease in Childrens' intelligence is due to an elite cabal of flying radioactive monkeys, working in conjunction with a conglomeration of Al Gore, Enron, Jews, Terrorists, Oil Companies, Professional Sports, and Neo Conservatives. They are putting flouridated water, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils into our children's food. They are filling our classrooms with brainwashing standards and sex education in order to force our children into lockstep with their industrial, capitalistic, machine. Also, children are more likely to live under power lines and watch television-- both of which cause autism and brain damage. Also, the information age has given them ADD and is making them all into screaming lunatic perverts. They can't focus because their entire life is a barrage of media. All they know how to do is consume. They are out of shape, socially malajusted, and entirely dependent on harmful technology. And what's really sad here is "flying radioactive monkeys" is the only thing in this paragraph that let's you know I'm kidding.
If a news anchorman just went on TV and started going "BLEEARGH, BLEAARGH!!" while a menacing barrage of pictures fired off in the background, a lot of people would be very concerned and see the report as a shocking expose on the evils of the modern age.
How utterly pathetic. Family guy had *one* good season. Granted, it was really funny for that season, but that doesn't excuse this kind of ridiculousness. Stewie? Talk show? Please. The whole "Family Guy" thing was over years ago. Let's admit it and move on.
1. Release hilarious series. 2. Cancel series, prompting huge DVD sales 3. bring series back with crap writing and pander to jackass fanboys 4. Mega profit.
And yet there are numerous scientists who are starting to think that it may not be dead dinosaurs and dead trees. We're not familiar with the process as we haven't been able to duplicate it in the lab -- so its theory. Could there are bacteria deeper in the earth that creates oil as a byproduct? Who really knows. The fact that oil is cheaper and consistently priced against the money supply leads me to believe that oil is not getting any more scarce.
No, it's an untested hypothesis. Sorry, but you're talking about science, and "theory" has an established meaning. Also, this appeal to ignorance business isn't going to get you anywhere useful. Maybe His Noodlyness will provide us with an unlimited supply of oil. Who really knows? Well, we *do* know that oil can be synthesized from dead organic matter, and oil from abiotic sources isn't looking like a hot ticket idea, so let's keep it sane. We are probably going to run out of cheap oil. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but it's going to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Bold action indeed. Consider the bold action of sticking your foot in your mouth: "The average foreign student scores higher on any test of English than any American does" you say.
This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. You're saying that a hypothetical person that we call average foreign student can get higher test scores on *any english test* than the *best* American student. In other words, the best American English speaker would score below average if tested with a pool of foreign students. That's utter silliness. I'm willing to believe that foreign students do very well in English tests.
A number of countries with many students studying abroad teach English from an early age (India, for example), and since these countries have effective education systems, they produce fluent English speakers. Also, people that can afford to go to school abroad tend to come from affluent families that place an emphasis on education, which skews their test scores higher. But what you're saying is just hyperbole for the sake of hyperbole. Be accurate! There are some incredibly proficient, fluent, and articulate speakers of American English that were raised in the states, and I think we can all agree that these people (even if they represent a minority of U.S. students) would perform above average when compared to the body of foreign students studying in America.
Nitpicking aside, I agree with the main thrust of your argument to some extent. I like the idea of kicking out management-speak-spewing overpaid jackass CEOs, and I think there are a few cases where outsourcing top management looks particularly attractive-- but suggesting American businesses as a whole should be taken out of the hands of Americans is a jilting proposition to me. There is something to be said for independence, after all. I don't think it's a fair trade to cripple America's sense of self rule in exchange for a few bucks and an averted corruption scandal or two.
We have so many words because we have so few characters and no system of tones for distinguishing homonyms. That, and the anglo-saxons, polar-bear-pirates that we are, get around to neighboring countries pretty often and pillage their words. It's a great language, but certain independently created systems of writing shouldn't be forced into compliance with our standards-- we don't use these characters because they're the absolute end all be all best, we use them because everybody knows them and they've worked pretty well so far. In other words, they're a standard too old to change abruptly. Anyway, I like em.
This efficiency business though, I'm not so sure about. We have to parse quite a bit more visual space to read the same amount of information-- that's not particularly efficient.
Anyway, memorizing the spellings for 60,000 not-so-phonetic words and memorizing 60,000+ kanji-- it's not so clear which is easier.
Even if it means destroying the environment by depleting finite natural "feature" reserves. Damn you, irresposible Americans! Your cowboy attitude is destroying the planet!
Of course, we Linux junkies don't want unnecessary features. We want a computer that does exactly what it was designed to do, without room for flexibility or customization!
C'mon, guys. There's a lot of room to criticize Microsoft, but do you really think shouting about the plethora of features they've added over the years is going to convince anybody? My god! Their software, it has so many... things! It's some kind of thing monster! Thing monster! Kill it!
To be fair, it's only the propaganda artist in the article that's really saying it, but still...
Why can't they both be happy? They can have a pony, and a house, and a kitchen, and they can ride the pony...
If they wanted to, they could quit their jobs and become astronaut ballerina princesses, and fight crime, IN THE JUNGLE, as jungle crime fighters.
Or Steve Jobs could go to the Yukon and have adventures there-- and Wozniak could be an segway riding anti-terrorist vigilante in the Middle East.
Can we change the subject now?
Laws, laws, laws. Let's not get too litigation happy. If everybody involved think it's ok (i.e. the copiers and the software foundation) then, with things like this, nobody's done anything wrong. Right? The idea of copyright law stabbing the copyright holder inadvertently by forcing him to adhere to the same crippling licenses that proprietary, corporate, software uses is a crazy idea every way you think about it. I guess it's a good thing that isn't what's happening.
Apple beat HP to this kind of thing by over a decade. They've been making PC/Boat anchors, PC/doorstops etc. for a looong time now. Granted, they got out of that business sometime around when OS X came out. Must not've been profitable anymore.
Making crazy, half cocked, analogies is like driving a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.
sur as a coledge studnet i frimly believe tht internet comunications cn only hlp in enceraging proper english...
And the fact that it took me a really long time to write that sentence only helps my case.
The most glaring examples of bad grammar come from people that would be illiterate whether or not they could be heard on the internet. Most of the article is just "blah blah blah, I'm old!"
These are the bastards that made me write essays with a pencil back in the day-- the kind of people that think typing is too impersonal (issuing a big "fuck you" from people with lifelong fine motor skill impairments, like myself). There are some bits I agree with, though. I don't like these bullshit buzzwords one bit. They're obfuscating the language, and they don't make any logical *sense* in most sentences. They're frivolous and have no literary merit. On the other hand, they allow me to tell the difference between a lunatic illiterate slob and an eloquent speaker.
OS X is very stable-- rock solid, in my experience. But Apple has not *always* made stable software. I am sitting right now in a computer lab full of OS 9 running green and white G3s. I can tell you with great certainty that classic Mac OS is *not* stable. These systems die constantly. Without warning, they will simply *halt*. Nothing to do but hard reset. Absolute freeze. This has characterized my experience with classic Mac OS. You'll just be chugging along, doing your thing, and then *WHAM*, everything dies, without warning-- without so much as a cough or sputter. Just absolute electronic oblivion.
We're not talking about particularly intensive applications either-- think elementry school educational software.
Hahaha! Porn pornity porn porn porn! The joke here is that the internet has porn on it! Haha! I made a funny. Excuse me a moment while I go change my pants.
Please, people!
At any rate, it's another one of those surveys that attempts to rigorously show what we all already know. People use the internet as a medium for social interaction. Whoopee.
I'm a little worried, though, that computer users answered "fun" because they had no idea what they were doing on the internet. That's probably unfounded, though. Most of them are probably members of the thronging myspace jackass horde.
I think when they say "simple" they mean simple like "Boy howdy! I may not know too much about math, but I can drive a truck real good!". That kind of thing. Less "the simple life", and more "the simpleton". "Maybe I laust my daug, but I steel haev jaebus!" Simple. Like they're not gonna trick you by being too smart or anything.
I agree with you about jackass sophisticates-- they can decieve some people, but generally you can look somebody in the eyes and tell pretty quickly if the wheels are spinning back there.
Science *always* attempts to explain or predict phenomenon that extend beyond the boundaries of that which is actually observed. Even if it's as simple as saying "if I pee on the snow and it melts today, then if I pee on the snow tomorrow, it will melt". I think you're making a bullshit arbitrary distinction. Science is inductive-- you're saying that, at some level of removal from the empirical results (defined by you, I guess), induction stops being "proven science" and starts being... "theory". How is that a useful distinction? You're using induction either way, but now that you've divided science into two categories, you no longer have a continuum that spans from reasonable, obvious, induction, to unreasonable, farfetched induction. Seems like an artificially simple way to look at a complex situation-- which, of course, is a favorite tactic of pseudo-science and quackery.
It has been said time and time again-- a theory is a falsifiable hypothesis supported by all accepted evidence. As the original guy scarcastically pointed out, saying "Theory of Jesus" is insulting both to scientists and to christians. Insulting to christians because they base their beliefs on faith, and theories are by necessity falsifiable-- and insulting to scientists, because they base their conclusions on evidence. Putting religious doctrine in a category with empirical observation does an injustice to everything science has accomplished and stands for.
When you use the word "theory" that loosely, the word loses all meaning.
"Theory of Jesus" might as well be "Theory of Bonk on the Noggin"
"Theory of Boy Howdy I Sure Do Like Bacon".
"Theory of Let's All Jump Up and Down Real Fast"
I got the full story on NPR-- and the scientist they interviewed brought that up. They *were* under the impression that the placenta formed an impenetrable barrier, and they *did* think that the immune system would attack any remaining fetal cells, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Looks like a CLOUD passed over their SERVER FARM!
Ha! Ha ha! Ha! Ha, ha ha! Ha ha, ha, ha!
Ah, renewable energy! Endless mirth!
And here I thought it was a story about a prestigous scientific department being called to make a sacrifice for their burgeoning biology division:
"Geek U's Officials Tapped For Ears"
0.5*0.1 + 0.5*0.5*0.1 + 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.1 + 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5*0.1 + ...= ...= 0.1
.1/.5 .2
0.05 + 0.025 + 0.0125 + 0.00625 +
sum as n gets bigger of a(r^n) = a/(1-r)
sum as n gets bigger of 0.1[(0.5)^n]
= 0.1/(1-.5)
=
=
Right?
MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said today the pants office in the US has to keep his penis in a special harness because his member is so vast.
"My johnson has to be kept in special trousers because normal garments can't deal with the numbers," he said at a Microsoft conference held in Lisbon.
Thank you, Mr. Gates!
And yet it just doesn't work that that way in biology. Your simple analogy is stupid. Biology is still always complex. Cars are, in comparison, pretty simple-- and designed by humans, and designed specifically to be easily controlled by humans. Biology wasn't designed by humans, nor was it meant (whatever that means) to be controlled by humans.
Also, we know everything about how a car works (within reason. We know enough to build one, after all). We do not know everything about how humans work. The only way to build a new human is a risky hit-and-miss kind of affair that gets very messy and doesn't always work out for the involved parties.
I don't think I'm muddled on this one-- your attempt to muddy the waters with a crappy analogy hasn't swayed me. Simple statements about biological mechanisms are overwhelmingly inaccurate or misleading. Even a seemingly intuitive statement like "if I eat more, I will gain weight" is misleading, and frequently untrue.
Why do you think Pseudoscience is such a damned hit? It's easy an enjoyable to make incorrect generalizations about these overwhelmingly complicated systems.
Help me out here, Mr. AC-- what's so simple about Biology? Especially in this context!
The statement: [something related to biology or the human body] is simple! Is always, always, always a lie. A big lie. A big fat stupid lie. A big fat stupid lie with diabetes and countless chins. Can we do away with this? Please? You'll notice that science type folks tend to phrase things very carefully. This isn't just their way of fancy talkin'. They're trying to communicate in some way the overwhelming complexity of the thing they're studying, and trying to emphasize how little is known.
The cause of human obesity is really very complex.
And anyway, this whole "evolution forced us to be efficient energy storage machines!" is a little ridiculous. It's highly speculative, and it doesn't give us any useful information on how to solve the problem. IT WAR TEH EVOLUSHUN! Why is the assumption that our ancestors were always hungry so prevalent. You know, our ancestors were real smarties, and there's a lot of food out there. Also, people have been smart enough to store food for thousands of years, which really takes the edge off the "I'll just store food in my body!" thing.
The decrease in Childrens' intelligence is due to an elite cabal of flying radioactive monkeys, working in conjunction with a conglomeration of Al Gore, Enron, Jews, Terrorists, Oil Companies, Professional Sports, and Neo Conservatives. They are putting flouridated water, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils into our children's food. They are filling our classrooms with brainwashing standards and sex education in order to force our children into lockstep with their industrial, capitalistic, machine. Also, children are more likely to live under power lines and watch television-- both of which cause autism and brain damage. Also, the information age has given them ADD and is making them all into screaming lunatic perverts. They can't focus because their entire life is a barrage of media. All they know how to do is consume. They are out of shape, socially malajusted, and entirely dependent on harmful technology. And what's really sad here is "flying radioactive monkeys" is the only thing in this paragraph that let's you know I'm kidding.
If a news anchorman just went on TV and started going "BLEEARGH, BLEAARGH!!" while a menacing barrage of pictures fired off in the background, a lot of people would be very concerned and see the report as a shocking expose on the evils of the modern age.
How utterly pathetic. Family guy had *one* good season. Granted, it was really funny for that season, but that doesn't excuse this kind of ridiculousness. Stewie? Talk show? Please. The whole "Family Guy" thing was over years ago. Let's admit it and move on.
1. Release hilarious series.
2. Cancel series, prompting huge DVD sales
3. bring series back with crap writing and pander to jackass fanboys
4. Mega profit.
And yet there are numerous scientists who are starting to think that it may not be dead dinosaurs and dead trees. We're not familiar with the process as we haven't been able to duplicate it in the lab -- so its theory. Could there are bacteria deeper in the earth that creates oil as a byproduct? Who really knows. The fact that oil is cheaper and consistently priced against the money supply leads me to believe that oil is not getting any more scarce.
No, it's an untested hypothesis. Sorry, but you're talking about science, and "theory" has an established meaning. Also, this appeal to ignorance business isn't going to get you anywhere useful. Maybe His Noodlyness will provide us with an unlimited supply of oil. Who really knows? Well, we *do* know that oil can be synthesized from dead organic matter, and oil from abiotic sources isn't looking like a hot ticket idea, so let's keep it sane. We are probably going to run out of cheap oil. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but it's going to happen.
Also: To a nail, every person with a hammer looks like a problem.
I'm a goin' ta hit you!